To Be Shounen
by Snow757
Summary: As they both continued reading each other's manga, they discovered that they really didn't fit into the Shounen Hero's trope. Oneshot.


Just a silly crossover idea that wouldn't leave my mind.

I think I ranted too much on tumblr about how Gintoki and Tsuna were my favorite shounen heroes, but hey, why not write a crossover about them?

You can ignore this, I'm just rambling on aimlessly.

* * *

**To Be Shounen**

* * *

The All Protagonists center page went on smoothly enough, there hasn't been that much of a disaster, thankfully.

Celebrating this, the heads of WSJ invited the protagonists to a party at a fancy restaurant in Tokyo. The mere mention of a free meal brought excitement in the young heroes, and they all hurriedly went there, some of them were demanding their food already.

Predictably, the restaurant was in chaos the moment they stepped in it, the poor manager felt like dying every time a wall got crashed.

In the midst of this all was one Sakata Gintoki, who sighed boredly as he sipped his sake.

_This is going to be a long night..._

He was all for reading Jump, hell, he would do it right now. Staying in a closed building with the heroes? Not so much. The damn brats were noisy and, though he would never admit it, they made him feel old.

Someone tripped in front of him then, pulling him away from his musings along with that. "Oi, it's not the time for getting drunk yet, we just got into the place."

The person just winced in pain as he got up, cursing something or someone with the name of... _Reborn?_ And now that Gintoki took a full look at him, he realized that it was a kid, probably Kagura's age.

The kid didn't take notice of him even when he sat beside him at the bar. "Aren't you a bit young to sit here, kid?" he asked, making the other finally notice that there was a living, breathing person sitting next to him. Gintoki would've been offended if he didn't notice, actually.

"Sorry," the kid said, scratching his head sheepishly. "This place seemed quiet so..."

_Another runway, huh?_ "Suit yourself, just keep me out of the matter if someone asked about you being drunk, alright?"

The kid nodded understandably, though he sweat dropped at his choice of words.

It took watching the other kids almost destroy the restaurant because of their insane partying for Gintoki to sigh in annoyance and talk to the kid next to him. "Where are you from?"

The kid, who was quietly observing the chaos with a look of dread, looked surprised that he was being asked a question. "Huh?"

"What manga?" Gintoki elaborated patiently.

Realizing what the question was, the kid answered, "Katekyo Hitman Reborn."

"Even with the overly long name, I don't think I remember reading it," Gintoki mused loudly, _did the bookstore in his neighborhood sell incomplete editions or something?_ "What is it about?"

"The Mafia..." the kid answered simply.

"You guys fight the Mafia?"

"You can say that, we're kinda in it though."

"So you're in the Mafia but you fight the Mafia?" _A Mafia manga, huh? That's rare._

"Yes," the kid said, not looking happy about at all.

"So what are you? A young boy going through a Mafia family's ranks and finally succeeds in becoming its boss?"

The kid stared at him for a while before he chuckled, as if the very idea was hilarious to him. "Maybe if our manga was like that, we would've been more popular. I'm just an average middle-school student who was told that he was going to be a Mafia family's boss by a one year old baby."

It was Gintoki's turn to stare at him. "And you accepted?"

"No, I kept refusing it every time he mentioned it."

"So your dream is to never be a boss, right?"

The kid sighed then. "Yes, but no one seems to understand that." Looking curious, he asked him, "And you?"

"Our manga is called Gintama," the kid raised an eyebrow at that, "People don't say its name loudly in public. What is it about? Aliens and Samurais. What's my goal? I have no idea."

"That's a... _very interesting_ premise," the kid looked at him as if he were high, which probably says a lot about his mangaka. _Damn it, Sorachi! Always making me lose face in front of people with your half-assed plot explanations._

"At least a baby didn't tell me that I was going to be a Mafia boss," Gintoki defended.

"I..." the kid looked as though he was about to protest, but then he chose against it. "I can't argue with that."

And with that, they became silent.

That is, until the kid spoke up again, this time looking at the chaos in front of him thoughtfully, "Sometimes I wish I was as carefree as them, or even as brave. Why did I even get invited is still beyond me, Reborn threatened to burn me with his new flamethrower if I didn't show up."

For unfathomable reason, Gintoki felt like he really didn't want to meet this Reborn guy.

He also felt like the kid was talking about the baby.

Weird.

"If it makes you feel better, I have no idea why they invited me too, there's a limit to the ball jokes one can make before the rating goes to R-18."

The kid wisely chose not to comment on the latter point. "I kind of feel out of the place, you know? Sometimes I doubt that I'm a Shounen protagonist..."

"Same." Gintoki nodded in understanding, calmly sipping his sake (thank God that everyone was busy trying to manage the other heroes, he could drink all the sake he wanted). "But we wouldn't be here without a reason, right?"

"Sometimes, a hero doesn't have to be perfect. Got that, kid?"

The kid looked at him in surprise and maybe even awe then, but before he could reply, someone blew up the restaurant.

"Why must we suffer?" they both asked to no one in particular.

* * *

Upon returning home, Gintoki went to the neighborhood's bookstore for his monthly Jump reading fest.

And then he saw the kid from the party on an old edition's cover.

Curious, he bought it.

* * *

Buying Gintama proved to be rather embarrassing.

Especially when the bookstore's owner was an old man with bad hearing and sight. "Tell me which Manga you bought so I could tell you the price, I can't see, see?" He chuckled at his own joke good naturedly.

"It's Gintama," Tsuna said, hoping that his voice would be loud enough to be heard by him.

"What? Futurama? You should go to another store if you wanted that, son."

"No, Gin-tama." _Maybe now he could understand him._

"Hentai? Aren't you too young for that?" _Or maybe not._

"N-NO!" Tsuna exclaimed, face utterly red.

"Kids these days." The old man sighed as he told him the price.

"I'm not looking for Hentai." Cue to everyone staring at him. "I'm looking for _Gintama._"

"Kuroko No Basuke? Good choice! Who do you ship? I ship KiKuro."

That was it.

"I. Am. Looking. For. _GINTAMA!_"

Everyone grew silent.

"You're looking for your balls?"

Tsuna, understandably, sobbed.

* * *

"That baby is cute," Kagura noted as she read the Manga over his shoulder.

"Trust you to find a baby from hell cute," Gintoki said, flipping through the pages. _No wonder the kid obeyed that baby, I would've probably called him 'Master' by now._

* * *

"Tenth, excuse me for my insolence, but what the hell are you reading?"

Tsuna opened his mouth to explain, but then he closed it. "I honestly don't know."

Yamamoto only chuckled and commented on how much he liked Elizabeth.

* * *

"That marshmallow guy really looks like you, Gin-san," Shinpachi noted as he read the Manga over his shoulder.

"Are you saying that I resemble the Arc's bad guy?"

"Well, he does have a parfait in front of him."

* * *

"Did that guy just turn into Will Smith?"

"Yes," Tsuna answered.

* * *

As they both continued reading each other's manga, they discovered that they really didn't fit into the Shounen Hero's trope.

One was unmotivated and lazy, always in debt because of his gambling and sometimes, he can be quite the sadistic asshole.

The other was useless and clumsy, always in constant fear because of the bat-shit insane people that surrounded him and sometimes, he can be quite pathetic.

But...

* * *

_"Then and now, what I protect has never changed..."_

* * *

_"I don't need this kind of power. If you want me to inherit such mistakes then I will wipe out the Vongola!"_

* * *

They both smiled.

_And he dare say that he's not a Shounen protagonist._

* * *

Sometimes, a hero doesn't have to be perfect.

As long as there was something to protect, everyone is a hero.

* * *

**End.**

So, what do you think?


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